Milwaukee Road Caboose

Here is another edition of Scratchbuilt Sunday's

This caboose is a model of an old Chicago, Terre Haute, and Southeastern caboose the Milwaukee road had relettered for service on its rail lines.  THe caboose is made with scribed sides and has Plastruct parts, along with brass details parts, and wooden details.  This car is equipped with Monarch couplers and will operate on my 2rail layout. 

Chicago & Northwestern MOW Gondola

This is a model of an early C&NW convertible gondola.  Several of these cars survived into the late 1950's in MOW service.  My model is scratchbuilt from various pieces of basswood, plastruct parts, with Auel Andrews trucks.  The car was built to operate on my Proto Hi-Rail layout in a train of various MOW cars.  Decals are Champion and there is a load of treated wooden railroad ties. 

More Cars and Engines then Beech Grove

Once again I have completed a few more projects that I have been working on. So allow a few moments to tell you about them and about some upcoming projects.

The Reimer Packing Company refrigerator car is a scratchbuilt car based on the early URTX wooden refrigerator cars some of which were still in operation well into the 1960's.  The Reimer Packing Company was based in Green Bay, Wisconsin and had a couple of old reefers used at the packing plant.  Not  if they were yellow or badly faded orange, but this model is taken from those old  cars.  The Milwaukee Road served the packing plant South of Green Bay along the Fox River.   I used sections of scribed wood for the sides and Northeastern wood roof with Selley Custom Finishes parts for the ice hatches, brake details, doors, and sills.  Cal-Scale parts were used for the air hoses.  It rides on Auel Andrews trucks which have been reconditioned.  This car will be part of the Proto Hi-Rail layout I am building.

The #275 Milwaukee Road GP-9 is a Red Caboose kit I purchased several years ago.  I finally took the time to assemble it and detail it for the Milwaukee Road's first group of freight GP-9's.  Since I model the time period 1959 and 1960, I numbered it for the 1959 renumbering.  I also added detail to the engine that was missing from the original kit such as the number boards on the sides and the correct horn.  I added 1/16 inch plastruct strips to the bottom of the cab assembly to give it the correct height for a GP-9.  I also added Cal-Scale air hoses and replaced some of the weak plastic details with brass details to prevent their being damaged or broken.  In addition I added brass window shades to the side windows to better resemble the canvas shades used on the Milwaukee's GP-9's.

In upcoming editions of this blog I will show you some 2 Rail ore Cars that I have been working on, some for DM&IR and Soo Line, if only I can get my son to weather them for me. 

Engines (Second from the First)

I was in need of additional pulling power on the 2-rail portion of my layout and decided this old Kemtron Geep would do perfectly.  It required a bit of TLC work as well as being repainted in Milwaukee Road colors and adding those details specific to the Milwaukee Road's Geeps.  Details such as chains and walkways were added along with numberboards found on Milwaukee's Geeps after the 1959 renumberings.  I also rebuilt and rewired the motor as well as oiling around on the drive.  The engine had not been used for some time and it took a little effort to clean wheels, and repair the brushes before it would run.  Once done it ran beautifully.  My goal was to make it look like it had just returned to service after renumbering and getting a new coat of paint.  All of the MU hoses were added as well as new Cal-Scale air hoses. This Unit I picked up while I was at the Indianapolis, Indiana O Scale train Show in August.

Milwaukee Road GP9 (First of Two)

Finally the Engines have arrived. The First of Many articles to come.

Milwaukee Road GP9 #275 is a Red Caboose engine I picked up several years ago.  I finally had some time to build this kit and detail it for an early Milwaukee Road unit.  The Red Caboose kits are adequate for detailing, but ere very much underpowered and this unit will go in a lashup of Atlas F9's and AHM C-liners.  The details added were the correct air hoses, single chime horn, numberboards, and correct windshield wipers from Cal-scale.  This engine will run on my 2-rail layout once it is completed.

Scratch build Sunday

This model of the Milwaukee Road #2119 Railway Post Office started as a badly damaged Walthers 60-foot RPO that had been previously built many years earlier by another modeler.  We dismantled the car completely and stripped, straightened, repainted the sides.  The remainder of the car was rebuilt and detail was added to the underframe and new trucks were added to the car to more closely represent the #2119 which had been rebuilt in 1959 for expanded RPO service on many of the Milwaukee Road's secondary passenger trains such as the Copper Country Limited and the Chippewa trains to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.  The interior is based on photographs I found of a working Milwaukee Road RPO from the 1960's.  I chose to duplicate what the RPO might have looked like during the busy Christmas season with many packages as well as letters and Christmas cards to be sorted on the train.  This car will operate on the 2-rail portion of my future O scale layout in my Chippewa train.

Scratch-built Sunday's

The first boxcar, the Green Bay and Western outside braced car, was scratchbuilt using some wood and brass wire materials I had in my parts supply.  It has Selley Finishes parts, Keil-Line details, and Scalecraft Bettendorf trucks.  I used photographs of these cars in service on the Green Bay and Western as well as photographs of similar cars in use on the Milwaukee Road.  The GB&W cars were copies of a large Milwaukee Road order made in 1927.  GB&W lettered several of these for the KGB&W which was the portion of the Green Bay and Western east of Green Bay to Kewaunee and the car ferry docks.  They were used in paper shipments as well as early canned goods out of Green Bay and even were used to haul packing moss from western Wisconsin.  Most of these cars disappeared in the 1960's, replaced by new all steel cars.

The second boxcar is a model of a Monon boxcar similar to the ones I saw from our farm outside of Campbellsburg, Indiana.  It is an All-Nation boxcar that was in very bad shape and required considerable rebuilding and detailing to even look like a boxcar!!  I again used photographs I found online as well as in several books I have.  I used Selley Finishes, Keil Line detailing parts, and brass wire to complete the car as seen in the photograph.  The decals are Walthers decals.  This is a 3-rail boxcar for my Proto Hi-rail layout. 

The third boxcar is a model of an Union Pacific - Oregon Short Line boxcar that I made from an Athearn boxcar that I bought at a train show for $3.00.  Again it was another rescue of a badly worn out model that  required considerable rebuilding to even become a nice model.  Here I used Selley Finishes, Keil-Line details, brass wire, and Plastruct parts to complete this car.  I used several photographs and some information from Union Pacific videos I had for the model .  The decals are Champion decals.  This is also a Model for my Proto Hi-Rail 3-rail layout. 

One note of interest,  I often refer to George Elwood's very excellent Fallen Flags website for pictures of models to build for my layouts.  I would recommend it highly to those who want to model prototype trains.